A Novel Dimeric Eremophilane from Ligularia virgaurea spp. oligocephala

A novel dimeric eremophilane, ligulolide B, was isolated from the alcoholic extract of the whole plant of Ligularia virgaurea spp. oligocephala. The structure was elucidated by various spectroscopic methods including intensive 2D NMR techniques （^1H-^1H COSY, gHMQC, gHMBC and ^1H-^1H NOESY） and HR-ESI-MS.     

Quantification of retinoid concentrations in human serum and brain tumor tissues

Retinoic acid signaling is essential for central nervous system (CNS) differentiation and appears to be impaired in tumors. Thus far, there are no established methods to quantify relevant retinoids (all-trans-retinoic acid, 9-cis-retinoic acid, 13-cis retinoic acid, and retinol) in human brain tumors. We developed a single step extraction and quantification procedure for polar and apolar retinoids in normal tissue, lipid-rich brain tumor tissues, and serum. This quantification procedure is based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode-array detection (DAD) using all-trans-acitretin as an internal standard and extraction by liquid–liquid partition with ethyl acetate and borate buffer at pH 9. Recovery with this extraction procedure was higher than earlier (two-step) liquid–liquid extraction procedures based on hexane, NaOH, and HCl. The overall quantification procedure was validated according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines and fulfilled all criteria of accuracy, precision, selectivity, recovery, and stability. The overall method accuracy varied between −5.6% and +5.4% for serum and −3.8% and +6.2% for tissues, and overall precision ranged from 3.1% to 6.9% for serum and 2.1% to 8.3% for tissues (%CV batch-to-batch). The lower limit of quantification for all compounds in tumor tissue (and serum) was 3.9 ng g⁻¹ (ng mL⁻¹). Using this assay, photodegradation of the retinoids was evaluated and endogenous polar and apolar retinoids were quantified in sera and brain tumor tissues of patients and compared with serum and tonsil tissue concentrations of controls. It may thus serve as a suitable method for the characterization of retinoid uptake and metabolism in the respective compartments.     

Important Requirements for the Selection of Internal Standards during the Development of Desorption/Ionization Assays for Drug Quantification in Biological Matrices—A Practical Example

Desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (DI-MS) approaches allow for the rapid quantification of drugs in biological matrices using assays that can be validated according to regulatory guidelines. However, specific adaptations must be applied to create reliable quantification methods, depending on the approach and instrumentation used. In the present article, we demonstrate the importance of the molecular weight, the fragmentation pattern, and the purity of the internal standard for the development of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI)-ion mobility (IM)-tandem MS and MS/MS methods. We present preliminary results of method development for the quantification of selinexor in microdialysis fluids with a stable isotopically labeled internal standard. In addition, we discuss the selection of internal standards for MALDI-MS assays using different instrumentations.     

Electromagnetic low-energy constants in χPT

We investigate three-flavour chiral perturbation theory including virtual photons in the limit in which the strange quark mass is much larger than the external momenta and the up and down quark masses, and where the external fields are those of two-flavour chiral perturbation theory. In particular, we work out the strange quark mass dependence of the electromagnetic two-flavour low-energy constants C and k_i. We expect that these relations will be useful for a more precise determination of the electromagnetic low-energy constants. PACS 11.30.Rd; 12.39.Fe; 13.40.Dk; 13.40.Ks     

一类齐次对称多项式上的切比雪夫不等式

本文借助于控制不等式及数学归纳法，将著名的切比雪夫不等式推广到m次一般齐次对称多项式上(如文中定理及引理7)，并将此结果用于对称平均等．旨在展示证明解析不等式的一些有效的方法和技巧，同时为数学研究特别是高维几何研究提供一些新的有趣而有用的解析不等式．     

An asymptotic formula for the pion decay constant in a large volume

We derive an asymptotic formula à la Lüscher for the finite-volume correction to the pion decay constant: this is expressed as an integral over the 3π|A_μ|0 amplitude after proper subtraction of the pion pole contribution. We analyze the formula numerically at leading and next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion.     

Relations between SU(2)- and SU(3)-LECs in chiral perturbation theory

Chiral perturbation theory in the two-flavour sector allows one to analyse Green functions in QCD in the limit where the strange quark mass is considered to be large in comparison to the external momenta and to the light quark masses m _u and m _d . In this framework, the low-energy constants of SU(2) _R × SU(2) _L depend on the value of the heavy quark masses. For the coupling constants which occur at order p ² and p ⁴ in the chiral expansion, we worked out in [1] the dependence on the strange quark mass at two-loop accuracy, and provided in [2] analogous relations for some of the couplings c _i which are relevant at order p ₆. This talk comments on the methods used, and illustrates implications of the results obtained.     

Investigation of the quantitative properties of the quadrupole orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer with electrospray ionisation using 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine

This paper describes the investigation of the potential of a quadrupole orthogonal acceleration time-of-flight mass spectrometer (Q-TOF) equipped with an atmospheric pressure ionisation interface for quantitative measurements of small molecules separated by reversed phase liquid chromatography. To this end, the detection limits and linear dynamic range in particular were studied in an LC/MS/MS experiment using 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine standards and 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine for internal standardisation. In a second phase, the experiment was repeated with real biological extracts (whole blood, serum, and vitreous humour). A calibration for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and its metabolite 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine was prepared in each of these matrices again using 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine as internal standard. The resulting quantitative data were compared with those obtained by liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection for the same extracts. The Q-TOF results revealed excellent sensitivity and a linear dynamic range of nearly four decades (2-10 000 pg on-column, r(2) = 0.9998, 1/x weighting). Furthermore, all the calibration curves prepared in biological material were superimposable, LC/MS/MS and LC-fluorescence, and the quantitative results for actual samples compared very favourably. It was concluded that the Q-TOF achieves a linear dynamic range for quantitative LC/MS/MS work exceeding that of fluorescence detection and at much better absolute sensitivity. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Noncommutative Differential Calculus Approach to Discrete Symplectic Schemes on Regular Lattice

By means of a noncommutative differential calculus on function space of discrete Abelian groups and that of the regular lattice with equal spacing as well as the discrete symplectic geometry and a kind of classical mechanical systems with separable Hamiltonian of the type H(p, q) = T(p) + V(q) on regular lattice, we introduce the discrete symplectic algorithm, i.e., the phase-space discrete counterpart of the symplectic algorithm including original symplectic schemes and the jet-symplectic schemes in terms of the discrete time jet bundle formalism, on the regular lattice. We show some numerical calculation examples and compare the results of different schemes.